


quiet as shadows

by ihavetoomuchfreetime



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cuddles, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Schmoop, cuteness, of sorts lmao, shameless fluff, they're both underage but nothing sexy is happening here so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 11:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3289385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihavetoomuchfreetime/pseuds/ihavetoomuchfreetime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, the fic in which zayn and liam 'accidentally' ended up kissing. au.</p><p>or better still, the fic nobody asked for or needed, but here it is, nevertheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	quiet as shadows

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in about half an hour at two in the morning, drunk on ziam feels. i am also ill. so. yeah. i cannot be held responsible to how stupid and bad this is lmao  
> i just wanted to write a stupid fluffy young zayn/liam fic because _why the fuck not_
> 
> (ETA: i've only been kissed once and that was when i was six on the minibus on my way back from swimming. with a towel over my head to hide what i was doing from the teachers. so. yeaaaaah.)

 

****

 

**_**

**quiet as shadows**

**_**

 

They’re fourteen years old. It’s dark, damp and musky in the basement of Liam’s dad’s house up in the Lake District, and Zayn and Liam are wrapped in a blanket, huddled together in the middle of a collapsing couch that’s full of dust and other things that aren’t good for teenage boys to be breathing in, reading Liam’s secret stash of Captain America comic books by torchlight.

“Oi,” Liam whispers, nudging Zayn’s side. “Stop turning the page, I haven’t finished reading yet.”

“And is that my fault?” Zayn nudges back, grinning with a teasing tone of voice that makes Liam smile in that one _way_ , making Zayn’s heart stutter in his chest.

“No, it’s just ‘cause you’re a swot and you read all these posh books with big words I can’t understand,” Liam grumbles, “that’s why you’re so bloody fast at reading.”

“Or it could be my secret superpower,” Zayn grins, turning the page back. “It would make sense. What with me being a swot and all.” In his peripheral, Zayn sees Liam exaggeratedly roll his eyes.

“It would also be a fucking awful superpower,” Liam teases, shining the torch in Zayn’s face. “What would you use it for, then?”

Zayn hums, considering. “Well,” he starts, “if  I had x-ray vision, I’d be able to see through the notes people pass around in class. I’d be able to cheat on tests.”

“But that’s x-ray vision, not reading,” Liam tells him.

Zayn wrinkles his nose and smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Hush, you,” he tells Liam, snatching the torch and focusing it back on the page.

Liam suppresses a giggle with the back of his hand. “Told you reading would be an awful superpower.”

“Oh, yeah, Liam?” Zayn challenges. “And what would yours be, considering I am far too asinine to come up with anything remotely useful.”

“Alright with your big words, Edgar Allen Powell,” Liam teases.

“Poe,” Zayn corrects. “Edgar Allen _Poe_.”

“Oh, shut up,” Liam nudges him again, and Zayn topples off the couch and falls onto the floor with a loud and heavy thud as skin meets cold concrete. Zayn sits up, glaring at Liam. Liam just grins in response. “Serves you right,” he says, pulling Zayn up, “for being a swot.”

“I will fight you Liam,” Zayn rolls his eyes with a teasing smile as he shuffles back under the blanket, folding himself onto the sofa so that he’s cuddled up next to Liam again. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Hm,” Liam hums, stroking at his chin like he has a beard, pursing his lips and squinting. “Probably mind reading,” he says finally. “Imagine the stuff you’d find out!”

Zayn looks at Liam, conflicted. “Yeah, but who wants to know what Ms Leech is thinking when she’s reading her porn magazines that she claims to be teacher’s journals?” He shudders. “I don’t want my mind polluted with that.”

“Gross,” Liam shivers. “But excluding things like _that_ , I’d be great. You’d hear what everyone is thinking.”

“You’d figure out secrets,” Zayn says with a conspiratorial smile, wiggling his eyebrows lewdly.

“Really?” Liam asks, turning to Zayn and putting the comic book aside. “And what secrets would _you_ figure out then, Zayn?”

Zayn grins. “Who likes who,” he says. “You could get up to so much fun.”

“That sounds…invasive,” Liam says, a blush rising to his cheeks. Zayn thinks it’s adorable. “What if it needs to remain a secret? Like if it’s important?”

“What, if it’s about who _you_ fancy?” Zayn teases, giving Liam a gentle shove. Liam flushes red, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth and gnawing at it nervously.

“Like – well – yeah,” Liam says in a quiet voice.

Zayn’s smile drops off of his face, and his eyebrows pinch together as he regards Liam in a curious fashion. “You like someone?”

Liam nods twice.

“And you haven’t told me who it is?”

Liam nods hesitantly, flicking his eyes up to Zayn’s before he averts them, focusing on his hands.

Zayn frowns. “But I – I thought we could tell each other anything,” Zayn whispers. “Best friends can do that.”

“I know,” Liam says, sounding anguished. “It’s just – I just –“ he sighs heavily. “Never mind.”

Silence settles between them; Liam finding rapt interest in his hands and Zayn with his eyes fixed on Liam, his eyebrows still furrowed. Zayn breaks it with a small cough. “Could I…could I at least guess?”

Beside him, Liam snorts quietly. “You’ll never guess who.”

“You doubt my ability, sir,” Zayn says facetiously, and he smiles when Liam giggles quietly. “Is she in our year?”

Liam hesitates, but eventually says, “Yes.”

“There, we’ve already eliminated four more year groups of girls,” he says. “Is she in our tutor group.”

Again, Liam hesitates, but says, “Yes.”

Zayn hums. “Is she blonde?”

“Zayn,” Liam says with a hint of annoyance, “we’re not playing twenty questions.”

“Come on, Liam,” Zayn says quietly, nudging his side gently. “Just – is she blonde?”

Liam sighs wearily before saying, “No. They’re not blonde.”

“Okay, progress,” Zayn smiles. “Brunette?”

Liam raises and drops a shoulder lazily. “You could say that, I guess.”

“Oh!” Zayn says. “Is it Nadia?”

Liam shakes his head.

“Sophia?”

“Nope.”

“…Grace?” Zayn tries.

“Zayn,” Liam says quietly. “Not a girl.”

And – oh. _Oh_. That…was honestly not what he was expecting. “Oh,” is all he says quietly. “It’s a…boy, then?”

Liam bites his lip as he eventually meets Zayn’s eyes, his coffee coloured orbs wide with evident worry. “That’s – you’re alright with it?”

 Zayn burrows closer to Liam, wraps and arm around his shoulder, and Liam sighs before dropping his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “’Course it is, Li,” Zayn assures him, softly. “So, then. Who _is_ it that you like?”

Liam picks his head up from Zayn’s shoulder and turns to face him, their faces impossibly close. Even in the dim light, Zayn can see every single eyelash, and every single fleck of honey and chestnut in Liam’s eyes.

“Zayn,” Liam begins quietly, his hot breath spilling over his lips and billowing on Zayn’s. Zayn raises his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for Liam to say something, but instead, Liam surges forward, pressing his lips softly against Zayn’s. Zayn’s eyes widen in surprise at the initial shock, because _bloody fucking hell, Liam is_ kissing _him –_ but just as he’s about to push back, just as he’s about to reciprocate, Liam pulls away, eyes wide and wet, full of tears that threaten to fall.

“Oh, my god,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have – I didn’t – I don’t want to lose you as a friend, and now I’ve gone and fucked it up and –“

Liam’s hyperventilating, his chest rising and falling almost as rapidly as his tears are, cheeks flushed and hands trembling. Zayn reaches for his hand and squeezes it to get his attention. Liam’s rambling is cut short abruptly, and he turns to look at Zayn, and his eyes flick down to look where their hands are clasped together, before they flick up to meet Zayn’s. Zayn smiles gently at him.

“Liam,” he begins, softly. Calmly. “It’s alright. Calm down.”

Liam’s doesn’t remove his unfaltering gaze from Zayn as he shakes his head. “It’s not – it’s not _okay_ , I fancy my best friend and it’s so fucking _pathetic_ –“

But before Liam can launch into another frantic self-hating tirade, Zayn holds Liam’s face between his hands, leans forward so that their lips are barely touching before pushing and kissing Liam gently. It’s soft, gentle and chaste, almost like everything a first kiss should be; soft touches, hands clasped together, holding on desperately, lips barely moving. Zayn feels Liam’s eyelids flutter shut as they continue to kiss, and Zayn moves his head a little to that they’re lips move against each other a little more and Liam follows, mimicking Zayn’s actions. They only pull back when they’re short of breath, but they immediately rest their foreheads together, and Zayn finds Liam’s other hand and holds it in his, gently stroking his  thumb over Liam’s knuckles.

“You’re not pathetic,” Zayn whispers, his eyes finding Liam’s under the swoop of ebony lashes. “Promise.”

A small smile stretches across Liam’s lips, red from kissing. “Yeah?”

Zayn just grins, wraps his arms around Liam’s waist and pulls him closer. He leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to the seam of Liam’s mouth. “Yeah,” he whispers back. “A hundred per cent.”

**_fin_ **

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://www.zainsupremacy.tumblr.com/) | come talk to me about ziam and gcse stress. comments are very welcome :)


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